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Of the three types of Roman Catholic records most commonly used for genealogical purposes (baptismal, marriage, and burial), marriage records are often the most useful, and potentially the most complex. Most useful because of the sheer amount of genealogical information that can often be gleaned from a Catholic marriage record. While a baptismal record will…

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The National Library of Ireland’s Catholic Parish Registers Digitisation Project is scheduled to launch on 8 July 2015 (see Catholic Parish Register Project Launch press release for details). John Grenham has seen the prototype, and reports that the images are “90 percent squint-free!”

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A reader is looking for information on Thomas Dooley. Thomas Dooley was born in Ireland about 1810, possibly in Co. Kilkenny. He emigrated to Canada in the early 1830s (the 1842 census of Upper Canada records that he and his first wife had been in Canada for 10 years), where he settled on a farm…

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If you’re looking for Catholic ancestors in the Bytown/Ottawa area and beyond (see below), you will probably (and by “probably” I mean “almost certainly”) want to check the parish register for Notre Dame Basilica, Ottawa. The register is available online at two different sites: At FamilySearch.org, as part of their collection titled Ontario, Roman Catholic…

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As I’ve mentioned before, 19th-century Roman Catholic burial records did not generally record a cause of death for the deceased, but there were exceptions to this general rule. In cases where a death was considered unusually tragic, dramatic, or violent, the priest might note the cause of death in the parish register. Here’s an interesting…

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Coming up: some search tips for the parish register of Notre Dame Basilica, Ottawa. An unwieldy parish register (full of perils and pitfalls, and hence the need for tips and tricks), but also a very important parish register for anyone searching for Catholic ancestors in the Bytown/Ottawa area and beyond. Below: my high school graduation…

My Lahey ancestors came from Killycross Upper, Ballymacegan, Lorrha, Co. Tipperary, Ireland;1 and emigrated to March Township, Carleton Co., Ontario, Canada from the mid-1820s to the early 1830s. And the reason why we have their townland of origin is that John Lahey, sometimes known as John Lahy the Elder, signed the McCabe List, where he…

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I found this photograph attached to a family tree at ancestry.ca, and contacted the owner for permission to post at my site. The owner kindly granted my request. This is John Killeen, son of Denis Killeen and Mary Ahearn. John Killeen was born about 1828 in March Township, Carleton Co., Ontario. On 20 December 1852,…

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Thomas Hourigan and John Hourigan were born in March township on 14 September 1849, the sons of Patrick Hourigan and Ann Teevens. I have no idea whether they were identical, or fraternal, twins, but in any case, the priest who baptized the infants — Fr. J. Ryan — made an interesting distinction between the two:1…